LMC – Techniquehttp://nique.net
The South's Liveliest College NewspaperSun, 11 Nov 2018 04:55:51 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8Ready, Set, Resume.http://nique.net/life/2018/09/17/ready-set-resume/
http://nique.net/life/2018/09/17/ready-set-resume/#respondTue, 18 Sep 2018 00:28:25 +0000http://nique.net/?p=38054With a disco ball hanging from the middle of the ceiling and panels that magnify sunlight coming in through the windows, the Communication Center aims to be warm and welcoming for both undergraduate and graduate […]]]>

With a disco ball hanging from the middle of the ceiling and panels that magnify sunlight coming in through the windows, the Communication Center aims to be warm and welcoming for both undergraduate and graduate students.

No matter the major, the Communication Center has resources and a support system of people ready to support the academic and professional needs of Tech students. With the all-majors career fair rapidly approaching on Sept. 17 and 18, many students will be stopping by Clough 447 to hone their communications skills.

There are both peer tutors and full-time professional tutors on staff to assist students with any mode of communication, whether it’s written, oral, nonverbal, electronic or visual. All of their services are completely free and confidential.

“Tutoring shouldn’t be serious and intimidating,” said Leah Misemer, one of the Assistant Directors. “I think it’s important that we look at many different facets of communication.”

Peer tutors come from a range of second to fourth years and from all different majors, ranging from LMC to CEE. No matter which subject students might need help with, there will be at least one person with experience relevant to their needs. For instance, some students come in seeking help with their introductory English classes, while others need help writing a lab report for chemistry.

Similarly, professional tutors are also available for various tasks. In addition to normal tutoring, they also focus on development for the center and conduct practice-based research. Tutors can help individuals build portfolios, revise lab reports, craft speeches and rehearse their presentations.

However, the space is not just limited to tutoring. One unique aspect of the center is its rehearsal rooms that can be booked for groups to practice presentations in.

In addition, the staff regularly conducts workshops for resume writing and more. Just recently, Lead Peer Tutor Natalie Zukerman hosted a “Writing for Engineers” workshop. Workshops like this can also be requested by large groups such as fraternities and sororities.

The Communication Center is a place many students annually visit during this time of year to sharpen up a resume, draft a cover letter or simply practice a short “elevator pitch.”

“Your resume should be scannable and skimmable and the [cover letter] should complement it. Think of the two as an application,” said Misemer. “The resume is the ‘breadth’ and the cover letter provides the ‘depth’.”

“It’s really about considering the audience,” said Keely Mruk, a peer tutor. “Just tailor yourself to the application. Pulling language directly from the job posting is really smart. A lot of students think that’s cheating, but that’s just part of considering the audience.”

However, a resume and cover letter is not the only opportunity to communicate your interest to a potential employer. Misemer recommends practicing an elevator pitch to help network and says that the Communication Center is a great place to practice.

“Basically, an elevator pitch is enough information to hook the employer in two to three sentences,” Misemer said.

Not only can the staff help with creating an elevator pitch, they can also teach you how to use nonverbal communication like body language to help get your message across.

The Communication Center can be visited weekdays from Monday through Friday, with varying hours. Appointments are recommended, but walk-ins are welcome at any time. More information can be found at communicationcenter.gatech.edu.

]]>http://nique.net/life/2018/09/17/ready-set-resume/feed/0Campus Spotlight: Kera Allenhttp://nique.net/life/2018/07/30/campus-spotlight-kera-allen/
http://nique.net/life/2018/07/30/campus-spotlight-kera-allen/#respondMon, 30 Jul 2018 19:12:23 +0000http://nique.net/?p=37852When thinking about the future of technology, it is nearly impossible to avoid thoughts of the next complex microprocessor, artificial intelligence or self-driving car. However, to Kera Allen, a Ph.D. student in the School of […]]]>

When thinking about the future of technology, it is nearly impossible to avoid thoughts of the next complex microprocessor, artificial intelligence or self-driving car. However, to Kera Allen, a Ph.D. student in the School of History and Sociology, it is not the object of technology that is important, but rather its past and future effects on society.

In particular, Allen’s research focuses on how the inequalities present for minorities in the world of STEM are researched and analyzed.

Allen came to Tech as undergraduate and received a degree in Science, Technology, and Culture, now known as LMC. After graduating, she went to work in the software industry as a technical writer and support analyst.

Her early experiences in the industry highlighted the need to better cast light on the inequalities present regarding underrepresented members of the computing and technology workforce. As a result of her experiences, she returned to Tech to earn a Master’s Degree and is currently working on her Ph.D.

“Men make up more than 70 percent of undergraduate students in the College of Engineering and almost 80 percent of students in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech,” said Allen reagarding her decision to continue her education. “I wanted to be able to articulate why and how these differences make an impact on women pursuing degrees in computing and engineering.”

During her studies, Allen has pursued — with the goal of analyzing and sharing — the untold stories of those who those have experienced barriers to success within the computing world.

“I am interested in the stories and experiences of those working with computer technology that are not typically represented in that area, such as women of color. In addition to telling the stories of the more ‘hidden’ figures, I am also interested in revealing the invisible or unwritten barriers, rules and structures that create the inequalities in and around computational technology,” she said.

Currently, many of the initiatives in place to combat the existing barriers are more focused on changing the data outcomes rather than addressing the underlying issues. As Allen shared, progress is fantastic, but it is not a holistic solution.

“There are diversity initiatives and corporate interests for more diverse workplaces; these are often focused on increasing numbers rather than changing the environment to make the technology sector more equitable,” she said.“Numbers are important, but programs should not overlook working conditions and the quality of the workplace.”

The numbers show without a doubt that there are issues facing women in STEM fields; however, this is where the data and the analysis stop.

“I started to notice that much of the existing literature addressing issues of women in STEM did not specifically discuss women of color. For example, a recent survey of more than 200 women in information technology (IT) and computing fields, focusing on women with at least 10 years of experience with most of the women in Silicon Valley, found that 84 percent of women had been told they were too aggressive. However, there was no mention of the racial makeup of the respondents,” Allen said regarding the current state of research in her field. It did not take Allen long to notice that in order for a holistic picture of the issues facing minorities in STEM fields to be created, a greater depth and diversity of data would be necessary. She saw that if change is to take place, more research examining the underlying issues would need to be conducted.

“Without knowing the racial makeup of the survey respondents, it can be difficult to discern if the results are the experiences of white women or women of all races and ethnicities in the field,” she said.

“I hope to describe the factors that contribute to a welcoming and affirming environment for groups with different intersecting identities in order to create a more complex, rich analysis of how different groups experience discrimination,” Allen explained.

Through this research and advocacy, Allen aspires to facilitate meaningful change both within policy as well as within the societal norms which impact the disparities present in the field of computer technology.

“I hope to effectively challenge a hierarchy that produces inequalities in computing and information technology fields, as well as suggest ways for reshaping these fields to better support equality,” Allen shared.

Just as technology is continually evolving, so too are the issues of inequality facing minorities in STEM fields. Through her efforts, however, Allen is dutifully working to change this. Her mission is to share ways in which progress can be made so that the benefits of an advanced and diverse computing workforce may be experienced by many more.

Initiatives that encourage more women — specifically more women of color — to enter computing and STEM fields are important to the progression of STEM fields. These initiatives are also essential to the work of creating more inclusive school and work environments in the future.

Allen’s research will be imperative to understanding how these environments need to change in order to eliminate the barriers for and biases against underrepresented groups in STEM.

By taking an intersectional approach and examining how the systems that work against women of color affect them in a computing environment, Allen’s research will expand the literature about these issues. Because the experiences of all women are not the same, it is important to improve the quality of the data collected about women in IT, computing and other fields to better understand how to improve the quality of the workplace.

Allen hopes her research will identify these issues in order to enable policy changes, bringing more awareness to the systematic inequalities within the field.

]]>http://nique.net/life/2018/07/30/campus-spotlight-kera-allen/feed/0The price of choosing your passionhttp://nique.net/opinions/2018/01/16/the-price-of-choosing-your-passion/
http://nique.net/opinions/2018/01/16/the-price-of-choosing-your-passion/#respondTue, 16 Jan 2018 16:21:40 +0000http://nique.net/?p=36707When I was in first grade, I used crayons and construction paper to write stories about puppies and flowers. In fifth grade, I wrote a book. A whole, 70-page book that was the biggest accomplishment […]]]>

When I was in first grade, I used crayons and construction paper to write stories about puppies and flowers. In fifth grade, I wrote a book. A whole, 70-page book that was the biggest accomplishment of my brief life thus far. In middle school, I wrote short stories, and in high school, I wrote poems.

Writing is in my blood. I thrive on words. I bleed letters. I have been fortunate to have always known what my passion is.

As I grew older, I began to notice that writers don’t usually live the idyllic lives that I had imagined they did. I came to a heartbreaking realization: if I was going to pursue a career in writing, I might not make all that much money.

Still, this never bothered me too much. I was still in grade school, and worrying about making a living was still on the distant horizon.

It was when I came to Tech as a student in Literature, Media, and Communications that I realized that the engineers and computer scientists that surrounded me would be making the big bucks, and I began to get a little insecure. Would some of my classmates really be making six figure salaries in just a few years?

I began to be tempted to alter my career path and choose a degree that might give me more stability and a higher salary. All of a sudden, I was confronted with a difficult decision that I had never even considered before: should I do what I love and potentially struggle with money, or do I subject myself to a career that I might dislike in the interest of having a more financially stable life?

I thought of first-grade-Polly, and how disappointed that little girl would have been be to hear she wouldn’t write for the rest of her life, but do something else instead, something that undoubtedly required a lot more math. How little she cared about math or money, but how much she loved to make up stories. That little girl still lives somewhere inside me, and it is her that I decided to stay true to.

The process of weighing financial success against interest is a difficult one, and it is a struggle that I recognize I am lucky to have. I am fortunate to have parents that encourage me to do what I love instead of forcing me into whatever career path they think is the right one. I am fortunate to have grown up in a society where money was not the first thing I had to worry about, where I can think about what interests me before I had to think about the paycheck.

When I chose a career in liberal arts, I chose to work hard. I willingly opted for the direction that offers me less certainty, but more potential for happiness.

I don’t know whether or not I will reread this editorial some years from now and roll my eyes at my nineteen-year-old naïveté. Perhaps I will take every word of it back and curse my stubborn teenage insistence that money isn’t everything. But for now, I still believe that if I am doing something I love, something I believe will change the world, then everything else will fall into place.

]]>http://nique.net/opinions/2018/01/16/the-price-of-choosing-your-passion/feed/0LMC gives unique opportunitieshttp://nique.net/life/2016/09/30/lmc-gives-unique-opportunities/
http://nique.net/life/2016/09/30/lmc-gives-unique-opportunities/#respondFri, 30 Sep 2016 21:07:52 +0000http://nique.net/?p=33465LMC is not an acronym Georgia Tech students hear very often. Unlike the many IE and CS students that roam Techwood Drive, LMC majors are few and far between in a school home to 27 […]]]>

LMC is not an acronym Georgia Tech students hear very often. Unlike the many IE and CS students that roam Techwood Drive, LMC majors are few and far between in a school home to 27 thousand students. In fact, LMC students make up only 0.5 percent of the undergraduate population at Tech. Housed in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, the School of Literature, Media, and Communication attracts individuals who are interested to learn how the humanities shape and are shaped by science and technology.

Lauren Moye, first-year LMC, has diverse interests and was attracted to the program because it is accommodates students like her.

“When I was looking at schools, I knew I have always loved liberal arts and wanted to pursue a major in that area,” she said. “But I chose Tech because: one, I knew that it was a great school, and two, that it was a really good combination of everything I was interested in. It’s forward thinking and also marketable,” Moye said.

Other students choose to add LMC as a second major in order to further explore their diverse intellectual curiosities. This is what Alice Barsky, fourth-year LMC and Public Policy, did during her third year.

The year has started off well for both of these girls. Moye loves her first taste of LMC classes and says, “I find everything we are learning super interesting. The professors are amazing and at the top of their fields. The classes are all tailored to exactly what you like, so if you don’t want to learn about Shakespeare you don’t have to.”

Barsky is taking classes as well as interning at Allied Integrated Marketing, a company that focuses on publicity and promotions for major film studios. She works directly with the Walt Disney Company and reaches out to organizations in Atlanta and other cities to promote movies that are soon-to-be released. Barsky’s unique combination of degrees and experiences has further expanded her future opportunities.

“I think especially being in two schools, I have experienced a lot of really high level research that I wouldn’t have found at other top tier universities,” Barsky says. “Within LMC, I think that the places that our alumni go are interesting because they don’t always go into traditional liberal arts careers, so you have a broader network and more exposure to different career paths.”

Barsky herself is looking into different possibilities for graduate school, considering programs that allow her to do more research on topics that fascinate her, particularly the effects of entertainment and pop culture on America.

As a fourth-year, Barsky has had plenty of time to rehearse the answers to the million dollar question — why choose Tech for liberal arts?

“I think the question is easily answered by the rankings of the school,” she replies. “A lot of people are unaware of how highly ranked our liberal arts school is. I think it’s important to immerse yourself within the school you choose, and that takes away some of the pressure [liberal arts student feel to justify their place here].”

Although the idea of studying a non-technical subject at a technical institute may seem odd to some, LMC students at Georgia Tech are potentially at the best place in the country to earn their degree. Academic and industry leaders consistently state that the School of Literature, Media, and Communication is “nationally prominent as an innovator in humanities approaches to media and technology” and that the program is “arguably the best place in the nation” for this focus.

The facts back this statement up. Tech humanities grads are the highest earning of any public university in the United States, and only fifth overall (public and private), according to NerdWallet, with a median starting salary of $51,000 in 2015.

Moye believes the success of Tech LMC students upon graduation stems from the school’s unique ability to bridge the traditional separation between the technological disciplines and the liberal arts.

“It’s because we are required to be so multifaceted. We have a wide range of skills and abilities,” she reasons.

According to the program’s website, LMC students “excel in critical thinking, analysis and synthesis, and are particularly distinctive in their abilities to solve complex problems” because their studies “link computing, engineering and science with culturally informed viewpoints and ethically grounded inquiries.”

Moye understands why people are confused when she introduces herself as an LMC major, but in the short time she’s been a
Jacket, she says she has already begun reaping the benefits. She hopes engineers and non-engineers alike come to realize the value of a liberal arts education, especially here at Tech.

“Even I wasn’t sure about coming here as a liberal arts student,” she said, “but I am really, really glad I did.”

And, considering the evidence, she is certainly not the only one happy to be receiving an LMC degree from Tech.

In fall 2010, Tech gained an award-winning science fiction writer in the Literature, Media and Communication School (LMC).

Kathleen Goonan gained popularity for the first novel in her Nanotech Quartet, Queen City Jazz. Her debut novel, Queen City Jazz is set in Cincinnati, Ohio, which is Goonan’s hometown.

Since Cincinnati was her childhood home, Goonan decided to mirror her childlike perceptions of the city in the novel. As a result, Queen City Jazz is a surrealistic novel with a nonlinear structure charmingly mimicking an adolescent perspective.

Less than a decade after her birth, Goonan and her family moved to Hawaii, where her father worked for the U.S. Navy designing fire protection for buildings.

The local library was a walk away, so young Goonan devoured books on fairy tales as well as Hawaiian history and folklore.

When she moved back to Hawaii 28 years later, Goonan used these early readings as inspiration for her novel The Bones of Time.

In 2008, Goonan won the John W. Campbell Award for her novel In War Times. Goonan says it is a personal favorite of her works because “it interweaves my father’s WWII memoirs with a science fictional investigation of why humans are so warlike, and how we might change that tragic propensity.”

Before winning major awards, before being placed on lists for best science fiction novels of the year, before accepting a job at Tech, Kathleen Goonan was a recent college grad with an English undergraduate degree from Virginia Tech who realized she wanted to be a writer.

To achieve this goal, Goonan realized she “needed to know more about life and about writing, and [I] trained to be an Association Montessori Internationale teacher in a program that is now a Master’s degree course at Loyola University.”

She wanted to open her own Montessori school so she could teach for nine months out of the year and use her evenings and summers to write. As usual, life decided to change things up a bit.

Goonan opened a school in Knoxville in 1979 and enrollment filled up quickly. The school was on a year-round, full-day schedule. Even though she loved teaching, Goonan found she had less time to write than she originally intended.

“When I woke up on the morning of my thirty-third birthday,” Goonan said, “a voice in my head said ‘If you’re going to be a writer, you’d better get started.’”

She took the voice’s advice to heart and started writing at every opportunity that presented itself. Mornings, weekends and lunch breaks all saw Goonan scribbling away to produce her first novel. Her work resulted in the aforementioned Queen City Jazz.

Goonan did not always have a focus on science fiction.

“My first writing identity was that of a poet,” she revealed. “I had some success with poetry when a college student, but during the fifteen years in which I was a Montessori teacher, something within me to which I have little access decided that I would write narrative fiction, and, more than that, science fiction, for which I had no background at all.”

Part of why science fiction allured Goonan was the intellectual challenge. Science fiction provided “a literature in which I could be experimental in the use of language as well as with story.”

This challenge, combined with her love for Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar and Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez, novels which “stand out like mountain peaks for me,” turned Goonan into the respected writer she is today.

Dr. Lisa Yaszek, Head of Undergraduate Studies in LMC at Tech, invited Goonan to speak at Tech and at a few meetings of the Science Fiction Research Association. Dr. Yaszek later invited Goonan to teach at Tech. Goonan accepted, and said, “I enjoy it tremendously.”

Goonan particularly likes teaching science fiction at Tech because she finds that Tech’s focus on technology education has fostered a respect for the genre amongst the students and faculty.

She has also benefitted from teaching at Tech, saying that “teaching at a research institution has deepened my own appreciation of the history and the possibilities of science fiction as an emerging international literature uniquely able to investigate and portray culture, politics, and how radical change affects countries and individuals.”

When asked which of her works was the most difficult to write, Goonan responded, “If you define ‘difficult’ as ‘unpleasant,’ then I would have to say that none of my writing has been difficult. It is my life’s work…Writing consists of proposing one’s own challenges and finding ways to solve the puzzle of communicating vision. For me, writing is thus the keenest enjoyment imaginable. When I am immersed in a story or novel, what I am working on seems like the most difficult thing I have ever attempted. Once it is down on paper or pixels, once it has been wrested from the part of me where story lives, which is a lot like trying to remember a dream, the fun, easy work of editing, shaping, and refining begins.”

]]>http://nique.net/entertainment/2014/04/04/kathleen-goonan-science-fiction-writer-and-professor/feed/0Independent film shot at Tech creates unusual blendhttp://nique.net/entertainment/2014/04/04/independent-film-shot-at-tech-creates-unusual-blend/
http://nique.net/entertainment/2014/04/04/independent-film-shot-at-tech-creates-unusual-blend/#respondFri, 04 Apr 2014 04:18:20 +0000http://nique.net/?p=25645Magical powers, alternative realities and ethnic history are a tripartite combination that rarely comes together. Yet that is exactly what Rite of Passage, a new independent movie, accomplishes. Blending “steampunk,” a traditionally niche genre, with […]]]>

Magical powers, alternative realities and ethnic history are a tripartite combination that rarely comes together. Yet that is exactly what Rite of Passage, a new independent movie, accomplishes. Blending “steampunk,” a traditionally niche genre, with African-American historical fiction, attempts to create an entirely new space of storytelling.

First premiered at the Black Science Fiction Film Festival on February 2014, Rite of Passage attempts to sew magic and history together. It is about a community of people who attempt to protect their sanctuary, the city of Nicodermus. The entire film draws upon steampunk, a genre focused around mixing science fiction with the Industrial Revolution. It is a world where steam is still the dominant source of power and the Victorian era is still a source of culture, especially fashion. The genre is generally well-represented in cinema with films such as Laputa: Castle in the Sky and Sherlock Holmes.

The story was primarily written and developed by Balogun Ojetade, who serves as screenwriter and director, and Milton Davis, who serves as writer and executive producer.

“My original interest was alternate history. It was Balogun who enlightened me to steampunk and inspired me to integrate it into my work,” Davis said.

Steampunk stories in the past have featured few characters of African descent, so the creators of this film are attempting to re-adapt the genre to their work. In doing so, they branched into the genre of steamfunk, so named because it combines steampunk with racial issues. They also created a literary anthology, Steamfunk!, to tackle issues such as the Diaspora, but with a steampunk focus.

“There’s never been anything done like Rite of Passage before. And this is not bragging,” Davis said.

The inspiration for the film began when author Milton Davis wrote a short story about a slave’s escape to freedom. In the course of his journey, the protagonist gains magical powers, which he uses to secure his freedom and later passes down for future generations to use.

In the original narrative, magic is actually a fairly small part of the story, which focuses more on the slave narrative, related historical struggles and character development.

The short story also differs in that the protagonist was changed to a woman, Dorothy, for the film. However, this has little impact on the actual story, and the character’s personality is largely kept the same.

“I’m a big fan of films. What drew me to the project was the opportunity to develop a film based on a story I’d written. I also wanted to see a steampunk movie based on aspects of African American history with black people at the forefront,” Davis said.

The short story lead to a promotional short film produced to raise funds for the full movie. The film itself is on YouTube and focuses primarily on Dorothy’s initiation through combat training by her teacher.

While more style than substance, the short film’s setting, choreography and outfits are all reminiscent of subversive, post-modern historical films, such as Django Unchained.

The production was done in partnership with Dr. Lisa Yasek, the Director of Undergraduate Studies in LMC. The project originally began at the State of Black Science Fiction Collective and further progressed with the Black Science Fiction Film Festival.

This is a film that could potentially lead to an entirely new genre that blends critical historical issues with a much more fantastical and entertaining style. Rite of Passage has the potential to be an innovative work that occupies multiple unique niches in storytelling.

“The film expands far beyond the initial concept of the story. It’s fuller and richer. We definitely see this as the first step to a series. That’s the plan. We hope the film is a jump off point for future films or a mini-series,” Davis said.

]]>http://nique.net/entertainment/2014/04/04/independent-film-shot-at-tech-creates-unusual-blend/feed/0STAC major merges into LMChttp://nique.net/news/2014/03/01/photo-stac-major-merges-into-lmc/
http://nique.net/news/2014/03/01/photo-stac-major-merges-into-lmc/#respondSat, 01 Mar 2014 14:29:48 +0000http://nique.net/?p=25305Tech’s humanities school, the school of Literature, Media, and Communication (LMC), is rebranding its Science, Technology, and Culture (STAC) degree program as simply “Literature, Media, and Communication.” The name change will take effect in May, […]]]>

Tech’s humanities school, the school of Literature, Media, and Communication (LMC), is rebranding its Science, Technology, and Culture (STAC) degree program as simply “Literature, Media, and Communication.” The name change will take effect in May, at the start of the next academic year.

According to Lisa Yaszek, professor in the LMC and director of undergraduate programs there, the name change is a part of broader structural changes within the STAC program and reflects the evolution of the humanities at Tech over the years.

“The name is changing and the way we organize the degree is changing,” Yaszek said. “We’re changing the unit name to be more clear the broad areas that we all work in, and also by changing the degree name it’s clear where the degree belongs, that it is part of the new humanities at Georgia Tech.”

Yaszek explained that the STAC program is the oldest liberal arts degree at Tech. According to Yaszek and the STAC website, the STAC program was founded with a focus of integrating the humanities with developments in technology and science.

“We want to wed the insights of the humanities with things we see going on in Science and Technology and Culture,” Yaszek explained.

Around the time of STAC’s inception in the early 90s, the focus of the humanities at Tech rested primarily around literary studies. At this time, digital communication as a medium of expression was still in its infancy.

Over the years, the STAC program has evolved. Yaszek emphasized that the new forms of communication, which have become so prevalent over the past few decades, have taken a place in studies of the humanities at Tech.

“We’ve grown as a multimedia department and an interdisciplinary department,” Yaszek said. The inclusion of “Media” in the name of the new humanities major reflects this change.

Another stimulus for the name change was the fact that the old name could be confusing to people not familiar with the program.

“You have to do a lot of explaining to explain what STAC really means, and people would often misperceive it, no matter how much we would talk to them,” Yaszek explained.

Yaszek related an anecdote of a student who was initially denied admission to a graduate program because the school thought he was a “Statistics” major.

In addition to the change of name, the school of LMC is also taking the opportunity to reorganize the curriculum of the program, adding “threads” which give students the ability to choose areas of study to focus in. Students will choose between literature, media, communication, social justice studies, interaction design and STAC threads within the broader LMC major. Yaszek, in conclusion, noted the importance of digital technology in the future vision of the school.

]]>http://nique.net/news/2014/03/01/photo-stac-major-merges-into-lmc/feed/0Poetry at Tech gives students a chance at artistic expressionhttp://nique.net/entertainment/2013/02/14/poetry-at-tech-gives-students-a-chance-at-artistic-expression/
http://nique.net/entertainment/2013/02/14/poetry-at-tech-gives-students-a-chance-at-artistic-expression/#respondFri, 15 Feb 2013 04:50:32 +0000http://nique.net/?p=18376Looking at the completely full audience at last Thursday’s Poetry @ Tech reading truly showcased how far the program has come since its inception in 2002. The School of Literature, Communication, and Culture houses Poetry […]]]>

Looking at the completely full audience at last Thursday’s Poetry @ Tech reading truly showcased how far the program has come since its inception in 2002. The School of Literature, Communication, and Culture houses Poetry @ Tech and serves as “one of the premier showcases of poetry in the Southeast.” Through generous donations and pure passion, Poetry @ Tech is able to provide multiple recitations each semester from some of the country’s most distinguished poets. Led by Thomas Lux, a Tech professor, nationally-acclaimed poet and the Margaret T. and Henry C. Bourne, Jr. Chair in Poetry, with Ginger Murchison and Travis Wayne Denton, who are current holders of the H. Bruce McEver Visiting Chair in Writing, the Poetry @ Tech program has grown tremendously from its auspicious beginnings over a decade ago. Now, the initiative has larger goals to send poets into schools, provide workshops for an HIV positive group and generally provide more poetry enlightenment and opportunities to the greater Atlanta community.

The Poetry @ Tech program has grown tremendously from its auspicious beginnings over a decade ago.

The first poet to speak at the event at Kress Auditorium was Laura Newbern, a Georgia College & State University professor who has received numerous recognitions for her quietly powerful and lucid collections.

Starting out, Newbern stated in her soft and gentle voice, “I’d also like to thank the weather for being so complimentary for what I chose to read.” And the poems that followed certainly paralleled the dark and dreary conditions outside, to a point. Starting with a somber and beautiful poem by Frank Stanford titled “You,” she then delved into her own works, each of which contained an edgy light-heartedness. Pulling inspiration from her love of soap operas, her home in Milledgeville and her nostalgic childhood, her poems seemed to sound like works of prose, with a graceful story interwoven into each one. Newbern finished by stating, “If my book tells any story, it’s a story about love and longing…the longing of a quiet observer and the world.”

Next was Dan Veach, who recently published his first book of poems and ink paintings titled Elephant Water, who began his reading by translating others’ poems from various languages, including Arabic and Chinese. Veach lightened the mood and had the audience laughing with blithe, amusing and playfully intelligent poems such as “God Spelled Backwards” and “Wear and Tear—A Poet to his Underwear.” Other works of his, such as “The Truth About Spring” which personifies winter in Boston, included an array of breath-taking literary and rhetorical devices; as Thomas Lux succinctly described, “Dan Veach’s quiet yet passionately intense poems let us journey companionably with him.”

The last poet to present—and undoubtedly the biggest crowd-pleaser—was Thom Ward. With six published books, Lux described his poetry as “breathtaking in imagination and energy…about as alive as alive can get.” Ward began by remarking, “Laughter is encouraged and welcome,” and his humor did not disappoint.

Ward’s array of poems included “In Defense of the Landline” which was a playful spin on problematic cell phones to the tune of the “Five Little Pigs” nursery rhyme, as well as poems inspired by an assortment of comical topics: cockroaches, Humpty Dumpty, toilet seats and his love for the Boston Red Sox, to name a few.

The night was enjoyable for Tech students and notable attendees alike.

Ultimately, the night—complete with snacks, wine and $500 worth of free, autographed books by the poets – was enjoyable for Tech students and notable attendees alike.

For those interested, LCC courses, certain English classes and numerous free workshops specifically focused on poetry are continually offered, guaranteeing that students’ ardor for the arts is enriched and appreciated even here at Tech.

]]>http://nique.net/entertainment/2013/02/14/poetry-at-tech-gives-students-a-chance-at-artistic-expression/feed/0Technologies to change television viewing experiencehttp://nique.net/life/2013/02/14/technologies-to-change-television-viewing-experience/
http://nique.net/life/2013/02/14/technologies-to-change-television-viewing-experience/#respondFri, 15 Feb 2013 03:10:32 +0000http://nique.net/?p=18348As television programs continue to evolve in response to ever-changing audiences, so does the medium of delivering the broadcasting. Social media are also expanding their presence, and all the while, digital artifacts are becoming ubiquitous […]]]>

As television programs continue to evolve in response to ever-changing audiences, so does the medium of delivering the broadcasting. Social media are also expanding their presence, and all the while, digital artifacts are becoming ubiquitous tools in everyday life.

The speed of innovation has a tendency to overtake the thinking of designers, and as a result, the future of the relationship between television and other digital media has uncertain, yet exciting, possibilities.

Dr. Janet Murray directs the Experimental Television lab.

The digitalization of TV continues to shape how we experience the medium. Dr. Janet H. Murray, the Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Affairs in the School of Literature, Media and Communication (LMC), directs the Experimental Television (eTV) lab. The group of student and faculty explores new digital media through prototypes.

Dr. Murray has made several publications on the evolution of media and its role in society. In her book Hamlet on the Holodeck, Dr. Murray argues that interactive narrative forms including emerging innovations in social and TV media can match, and possibly even exceed, the power of more traditional storytelling forms. She predicts upcoming innovations in games and extensions for TV series across the internet that mirror developing technologies.

Dr. Murray’s research also addresses the potential for TV elements like multisequential news and entertainment using several screens. These elements are telling, especially when analyzing trends in current news media.

The future of watching TV involves new and exciting outlets.

Emerging technology entering the market is exemplified by smart TVs. Smart TVs manufactured by Samsung and Google have proven quite popular. The most innovative forms of interactive TV, smart TVs enable users to perform a variety of functions.

The Google TV, for example, functions much like an iPad combined with a traditional TV. While the device can play satellite or cable TV, users can also access the internet and use apps like Netflix, Pandora and even Zynga Poker. The increased digitalization of TV has broad impacts for many shows. Especially with the advent of online services like Hulu and Netflix.

The future of watching TV involves several new and exciting outlets to experience diverse programming. These innovative elements focus on widespread digitalization and emphasize the usage of the internet.

]]>http://nique.net/life/2013/02/14/technologies-to-change-television-viewing-experience/feed/0Film, Media Studies minor explores multiple disciplineshttp://nique.net/life/2013/02/14/film-media-studies-minor-explores-multiple-disciplines/
http://nique.net/life/2013/02/14/film-media-studies-minor-explores-multiple-disciplines/#respondFri, 15 Feb 2013 03:10:32 +0000http://nique.net/?p=18344The Film and Media Studies minor offered by the School of Language, Media and Communication (LMC) gives students the chance to explore their interests through the subject’s broad historical, theoretic and cultural context. The minor […]]]>

The Film and Media Studies minor offered by the School of Language, Media and Communication (LMC) gives students the chance to explore their interests through the subject’s broad historical, theoretic and cultural context.

The minor requires six three-hour courses and is open to all majors.

Open to students of all majors, the minor requires the completion of six three-hour courses, with the only prerequisite being English 1102. Course options include classes in Video Production, Global Cinema and Documentary Film.

LMC professor Dr. Jay Telotte was hired at Tech in 1979 to help introduce film studies into the English department’s curriculum. In the years since, the concentration has expanded to include the range of different media studies topics taught by LMC professors today.

Dr. Telotte currently teaches a Film & Television course, as well as a Special Topics class in Film Animation. These and past courses have allowed him to explore his research interests, which include film history, science fiction and Disney Studios, with his students in a process that he describes as a learning experience on both sides.

“Because of the flexibility of being able to create new classes and teach practically anything I was ever interested in at the undergraduate level and the students’ interests in a variety of areas, we’ve been able to bring in additional dedicated film scholars and other people who work tangentially to enrich the program,” Dr. Telotte said.

An example Dr. Telotte gave of such a professor was Dr. Michael Nitsche, whose field is in Digital Media but also does some film production work with the program. In his Construct-Moving Image course, students can consider film, video and animation through emerging digital forms.

One of Dr. Telotte’s former students Ben Callner, who graduated five years ago, has been receiving attention recently for his “Goat 4 Sale” Doritos commercial that was selected through a national contest to air during the Super Bowl earlier this month.

Other students who have taken courses for the minor during their time at Tech have also pursued directing after graduation, such as Brad Tucker, who won the national Campus Movie Fest award and was admitted to the American Film Institute’s Graduate Directors Program as a result.

Media Studies is an exciting interdisciplinary field.

Rebecca Rouse, a PhD candidate for the MS in Digital Media, teaches the Intro to Media Studies course for the minor. Her aim for the introductory class is to make the material accessible to students of any major, and to allow their individual interests to guide their projects in the same way that she has been able to pursue her passion through the Master’s Program.

“I feel incredibly lucky to be able study [digital media] as a PhD student here, because frankly there wasn’t any other program when I was looking for school where I could do what I wanted to do except for Tech. My interest is in new technology on stage, and the digital media program here is really terrific for giving us a lot of freedom with what we want to pursue,” Rouse said.

The introductory courses for the minor are often taken by CM majors because the class is required for their degree, but Rouse has consistently seen mix of students—freshmen through seniors—from many different majors. She feels that this variety enriches the course by providing an opportunity for varied discussion, and tailors the material to this idea.

“I hope to show students through my course that Media Studies is a very exciting field because of its interdisciplinary nature. We cover a wide spectrum of topics so that each student can find something that [he or she] can get excited about. Every project is also collaborative, and I love seeing both artists and engineers at this school coming together in this way,” Rouse said.

Rouse is also currently working with Melissa Foulger, the Artistic Director of DramaTech, and taught a Special Topics course with her last semester for integrating new technology into mainstream theater. Students were able to learn designs for technical elements that will be incorporated into the upcoming DramaTech production “After the Quake.”

Opportunities to gain practical experience are strongly encouraged.

While not required, opportunities to gain practical experience are strongly encouraged in the minor. Dr. Angela Dalle Vacche’s six-week Italian Film Studies program takes students to northeastern Italy and the surrounding regions to learn and apply the fundamentals of filmmaking to their own Italian movies.

“We emphasize the technological language of cinema because it is a hybrid medium. Our students do not take film appreciation, but we have a curriculum of really serious classes about what cinema represents for the twentieth-century…so that we might be in a better position to understand the changes brought about by innovations,” Dr. Dalle Vacche said.

The cultural context found in the study abroad program, as well as other courses offered, such Dr. Qi Wang’s Asian Cinema Studies, is considered a vital part of the minor.

“We live in a global society dominated by many different kinds of images. Students who wish to pursue a minor in Film Studies are likely to do well if they are visually curious and open to learning about different worldviews,” Dr. Dalle Vacche said.